BlackBerry vs Android vs Apple

Vodacom’s latest statistics reveal that Android is showing strong growth in South Africa, easily surpassing the number of Apple iPhones. However, BlackBerry remains by far the most popular smartphone platform in the country.

Vodacom currently has 2.3 million BlackBerry users on its network, followed by 450,000 Android users and 250,000 iPhone users.

One year ago Vodacom had around 1-million BlackBerry devices on its network, with 150,000 iPhones and around 100,000 Android devices.

Apple’s iPad and Android devices have around 50% market share each of the 200,000 tablet PCs on Vodacom’s network. BlackBerry’s performance in this market segment was poor, with Vodacom describing the PlayBook’s uptake as “modest”.

According to Vodacom, BlackBerry remains popular in the country, but they expect Android to grow in popularity over the next 12 months.

The following graph gives a visual representation of mobile OS market share on the Vodacom network.